Marquette is quite lovely – built on low hills bordering on the Lake, with some beautiful Victorian homes, in good repair. There's also some interesting buildings; for example, a former Lutheran Church, turned into a personal residence. It's brick, and the words “Lutheran Kierke” are still etched in the stone above the doorway – couldn't see the inside of course, but beautiful from the outside. The public library has been restored, and also is beautiful in a classic style, inside and out. It overlooks the lower harbour, and I've spent quite a bit of time at the desks with huge windows admiring the view while I do my computer stuff. It's very scenic – the lake forms the northern and eastern horizon everywhere, and is just so huge! Usually quite calm, but when the wind comes up, you can see white-caps, and waves.
Northern Michigan University lives here, and the students have now returned. Even so, the town is pretty homogeneous, as was Iron Mountain – I do miss the diversity of Ottawa, with colour, language, dress, food from everywhere, everywhere.
On my first day here, I took in a tour of a local iron mine – an open pit mine, measuring one mile East to West, one mile North to South, and 1100 feet deep. (Sorry, no photos – not allowed.) According to the Guide who showed us around, this mine has 30 years of Iron left in it – wonder what size the dig will be then?? The portion of iron is much lower than in mines that are dug into the ground – at the one in Iron Mountain, the portion was 70% I think; here it's about 30%, so they have to move 3 tons of ore to get one ton to process. AND, the resulting ore has to be 'pelletized', to be usable by steel factories. To do that, the ore is powdered, then combined with limestone and baked at 2,400 degrees, (yes, no typo); then pressed into marble sized pellets and taken by train to Escanaba for shipping. On our tour of the Plant, we passed by tanker-car sized kilns, through which the pellets are baked. Why not shipped from here? The docks aren't big enough for the ship size needed to make the transport economical – needs to be around 1,000 feet long, such as I saw in the Sault, and the docks here only accommodate 750 feet ships. So the docks here are used mostly for off-loading coal and limestone, to feed the ore plant. The plant is so big it needed it's own electricity -generating capacity; and the plant had surplus capacity which now powers the rest of Marquette – size matters!
Did I tell you about “Da Yoopers Tourist Trap” ? A Yooper is a resident of the Upper Peninsula – get it?? The Tourist trap is a gold mine of local humour – deer hunting men; truck sized rifles and chainsaws. Etc. Fun! Didn't buy anything, but sure enjoyed the humour.
"Da Yoopers Tourist Trap"
I've taken in a local production at a theatre which is housed in a working boat-house, owned by the power boat man I'll tell you about in a minute. It was an original production done in opera style of a melding of 2 of Aesop's fables, illustrating the theme that even the mighty need the small. The singers were uniformly very good, especially considering Marquette's small population (about 30,000). Well worth seeing. The boat house was being used for a wedding reception the following night, so take down started immediately after the performance. But, it's still used to repair boats!! And, I've sampled local food – ever heard of Cudighi? It's Italian sausage, shaped and cooked in a patty, put on a bun, covered with mozarella and pizza sauce. Well worth one try. And, pastys also abound here – they've been served to us by three different groups, and reflect the mining history.
I haven't tried the Gaming at the Casino where we're parked – in the first place, it doesn't look like anyone is enjoying themselves – they don't talk to anyone, just glare at the machines; in the second place I wouldn't win; in the third place, the Casino is so smoky I can't breathe, so I'll keep playing Mah Jong and Freecell on my computer, and call it a day. Won't win any money that way, but on the other hand . . . .
We've been well-treated by HFH here; one of the staff invited us to join her at her favourite local restaurant, and we enjoyed the largest stack of spareribs I've ever experienced at North Woods Restaurant. Then, we went to her home on a near-by small lake, and dove into strawberry shortcake, and more stories.
One night last week, a local supporter of HFH took us for a scenic tour of this part of Lake Superior on his 50' power boat. 3 bedrooms!! What a treat, to see the coast from the lake view instead of the other way around. Toured by a beautiful home sited into the rocks; a tiny cove for a boat; a pool carved into the rocks – gorgeous!
We've been told frequently how dangerous the Lake is – people drown near here nearly weekly – there are rocks near the shore, many just below the surface; and the heat and winds cause currents that sweep people away from shore regularly. One young man drown 2 days ago – the water looked calm; it was very hot; he thought “I can swim to those rocks, no problem”. Sad. And, the boat owner emphasized the point, saying that even in the middle of the lake there are rocks just below the surface – there are always some novice boaters that say “I'll just take 'er out and let 'er rip”, and they do, sometimes ripping the bottom out of their boat.
And, we were here just in time for the annual Rotary Seafood Fiesta – 3 evenings of fish and music. I went twice – free admission – and bought a bit of fried whitefish and some strawberry shortcake and listened to the bands – mostly blues, but some bluegrass. No jazz. But the sky was blue; the food was good, and the music was better – a great way to conclude my travelogue of Marquette – it's a nice town to spend some summer days in.
Finally, we did work, really we did. Here's a photo of this group of builders, which includes a staff person, the homeowner and some of her friends. What a crew, eh?
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